New game plus

A New Game Plus (or New Game+, often abbreviated as NG+) is an unlockable video game mode available in some video games that allows the player to start again a new game after they finish it at least once, where certain features in NG+ not normally available in a first playthrough are added, and where certain aspects of the finished game affect the newly started game, such as keeping in the new game items or experience gained in the first playthrough. New Game Plus is also known as "replay mode", "remorting", "challenge mode", or "New Game Ex". The genre where they are most prevalent is role-playing games.

The term was coined by the 1995 role-playing video game Chrono Trigger, but examples can be found in earlier games, such as Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, The Legend of Zelda, and Ghosts 'n Goblins. This play mode is most often found in role-playing games, where starting a New Game Plus will usually have the player characters start the new game with the statistics and/or equipment they ended the last game with. Key items that are related to the story are normally removed so they cannot ruin the game's progression, and are given back to the player at the time they are needed; likewise, characters that the player acquires throughout the story will also not appear until their scheduled place and time, but will get the enhanced stats from the previous playthrough.

Games with multiple endings, such as Chrono Trigger, may feature a New Game Plus mode which allows the player to access the game's alternate endings more easily. Many games include special features that are unlocked upon starting a New Game Plus. In Sigma Star Saga, a special item is needed to unlock two of the four available endings; this item is unavailable on the first playthrough, but can be found in a New Game Plus game. This feature can also be used as an unlock trigger for replaying the game at a higher difficulty, such as in the various Mega Man Battle Network games and X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. In Astro Boy: Omega Factor, the New Game Plus is actually included in the game's story, as Astro must use the game's Stage Select (the ability to travel through time given to him by the Phoenix) to find out how to avert the Bad Ending that is mandatory the first time around.

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